Rating: 
Summary: Surrealism didn't die.
Review: I've seen my share of surrealist art, but a movie is another thing. The description I saw was spoke about it exploring sociopolitical identity, but with enough breasts to satisfy Russ Meyers, it was tough to see that component. It does relate the actions and behavior of an insane woman (played by two actresses (they don't seem to play different sides of a single person, they just seem to alternate between actresses)). I don't speak French, so I can't comment on the veracity of the translation, but the words were often amusing, both in concert and separate from the on screen action. The adult situations and brief female topless shots (in addition to violence) should be kept in mind, as the movie is kept from youngsters.
Rating: 
Summary: A brilliant film
Review: If you love Bunuel, you'll love this film. If you love film in general, you'll see why it is so brilliant. This is not a typical Hollywood film, so if you are expecting every end to be tied up neatly for you, this is not a film for you. But for those of you who like to get the wheels turning, see this film. I can watch it a million times, and I think I have, and I'm not bored of it.
Rating:
Summary: A movie of stunning relevance...
Review: Ignore Leonard Maltin; there is not a single act of physical violence intended to arouse, although there's PLENTY of emotional abuse and a pretty harsh expression of rage. This is a movie about how sexual politics, specifically the chase of a woman, can consume a man's life, and how said sexual politics are, in the end, pointless in the context of the wider world. And not only are they pointless, they can be abruptly ended BY the wider world. In light of recent events, that's an excellent lesson to have around.Of course, this being a movie from the director who gave us "Un Chien Andalou", there are some...offbeat touches. The role of Conchita is played by two actresses, a Frenchwoman and a Spaniard (slightly distracting at first, but once you know their faces, it fades.) A dwarf shows up rather early on. But overall, it's not particularly strange...just bitter. Despite it being his final film, the director's hatred of the idle rich comes through loud and clear. I highly recommend this, a great, restrained piece from a master.
Rating:
Summary: Bunuel's genius isn't obscure.
Review: Luis Bunuel's last film . . . and he checked out with a masterpiece. It's the fifth adaptation of a torrid novel written in 1898 called *La Femme et le Pantin* (The Woman and the Puppet). The only famous version, besides this one, is 1935's *The Devil is a Woman* starring -- who else? -- Marlene Dietrich. In *That Obscure Object of Desire*, Fernando Rey is bedevilled by TWO women: in what can only be described as a stroke of genius, Bunuel cast 2 ladies to play the same part of Conchita, a young Spanish flamenco dancer who begins the movie as Rey's housemaid. The considerably different physiognomy of Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina would at first suggest a "light" or "dark" side of Conchita (or a "sophisticated" or "earthy" side -- take your pick). However, each actress is assigned to her respective scenes in a totally arbitrary manner: both run hot and cold with Rey. The CHARACTER is the same, no matter which actress plays her . . . which says something about the "objectification" in the title, perhaps. (But only Spanish Molina is allowed to dance the flamenco.) In other words, this interchangeability is more than just another of this director's famous Surrealist touches. Bunuel arrives at deeper truths about how men view women, how men need women, and how any woman will do -- despite, in this case, Mathieu's apparent obsession with one woman. The driving plot-line, which is whether or not Conchita will surrender her virginity to Mathieu, soon turns into circular entropy with no resolution. Which, after all, is the point: desire dies when it's resolved. Bunuel suggests that the sexual drive and its attendant perversities and neuroses never die. (The fact that Mathieu is 60 years old, give or take, is not an accident.) Indeed, desire dies only with death itself, as the film's final shot indicates.
Rating:
Summary: Bunuel's final assault on morality
Review: Luis Bunuel's last film, "That Obscure Object of Desire" begins with Mateo, a wealthy man (we are never told what he does for a living, he is A bourgeoisie, and EVERY bourgeois man) making plans to return to Paris from Seville by train. After pouring a bucket of water over a woman's head, he tells his fellow travelers in the same compartment why he did so & who she is. His story begins with the day he first met the girl he dowsed with water at the train station, Conchita who he became fascinated by when she was his chambermaid. The first night she's there he makes an advance on her, which she refuses, & the next morning he finds out from his other servant, Martin, that she'd left without an explanation that morning.
He meets her again & begins pursuing her. Two different actresses play Conchita, one during the day & one in the nighttime scenes. Indeed, they seem to be two antithetical characters. Conchita during the day is very conservatively dressed & when she disagrees with Mateo she is calm and reasonable. In this, she is to a certain degree the archetypal housewife, raised in a rigid moral system even though she keeps telling Mateo throughout the film that she is her own person & does as she wishes(her mother is a devout Catholic, one of those who is constantly afraid of the influence modern society might have on their children.) However during the nighttime, Conchita becomes a little more tempestuous but refuses to give her virginity to Mateo.
Throughout the film reports of terrorist attacks are announced, one organization whose acronym we are given the full name of, C.R.B.J. (The Cult Religion of Baby Jesus) can be seen as being symbolic manifestations of physical violence and death which is the exteriorization of Mateo's own inner disorder due to Conchita refusing to have sex with him, even though she moves in with him & keeps telling him she wants to lose her virginity to him(she makes these pledges during nighttime scenes.) Even though Mateo tells his cousin that he can count on the fingers of one hand the women he's possessed that he did not love, we are never entirely convinced of his love for Conchita. He is continuously giving her as well as her mother gifts of money, but is this because he has never before shown his affection differently to other women, or does he really only hope to possess Conchita sexually & therefore treats her as someone who can be paid for sex?
"That Obscure Object of Desire" is also weaved with scenes of black humor, & delightful puns. In one scene towards the middle, Mateo asks Martin what his opinion is of women, Martin tells him that a friend once told him that "they are a sack of excrement." A few minutes later, Mateo is leaving a dinner party & the doorman hands him a nondescript brown bag saying "Here's your sack sir," which Mateo tells him he'll be back for it some other time. There's also a scene in a restaurant where Mateo calls the waiter over because he has discovered a fly in his martini, ("waiter,there's a fly in my soup.") no doubt an implicit joke about Bunuel's professed love for martinis.
Rating:
Summary: A descent into erotic madness.
Review: Mathieu is a sixty year old well to do Frenchman, who cannot control his wanton lust for the MUCH younger sexy nymphette "Conchita", a fiery Latin sex kitten, whom Mathieu tries to sexually conquer, throughout the film, in many different escapades. Some are humorous, and some are maddening. The story is told in flashback on a train ride. Conchita is played by two different actresses, both stunning beauties. And the tortured Mathieu is played by the perfectly cast Fernando Rey. The sexual tension between Mathieu and Conchita is highly evident from their very first scene together. He eyes her with sheer, unadultrated lust, and she slyly and coyly feigns indifference, but at the same time, uses her flirtacious mannerisms, and feminine wiles to play poor Matheiu like a violin, or better put, like a cat playing with a mouse. Conchita clearly knows the power that her sexuality has upon men, and seems to derive pure pleasure from tormenting the silly old gentleman, foolish enough to think that his money could buy her body, and her love. He is a stubborn old man, and no matter to what end of madness the sultry Conchita drives him to, he simply cannot concieve of the fact, that she will have nothing to do with him, sexually, and this stirs Mathieu's desire to the point of obsession. The film is high on eroticism, and has many scenes of nudity, mixed with sensuality. Conchita uses her incredible body to manipulate Mathieu, and no matter how much she drags him through hell and back, he is always ready to reconcile, and live together as lovers. But Conchita has other plans, always. Similar in style to the French film, "Nelly and Monsieur Armaud", but this film pulls no punches, and not much is implied. Carole Bouquet, the French lass, and Angela Molina, the sexy little Latin temptress scorch up the screen, whether dancing a naked Flamenco for the paying men, or engaged in a sensual embrace in Mathieu's bedroom. This is one of the finest pieces of erotica on film today, and it would be very interesting to see a remake, perhaps with Penelope Cruz, and Sean Connery burning up the sheets.....highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Bunuel triumphant
Review: Nobody makes films like Luis Bunuel. In this, his last film, he captures the related themes of obsessive desire, frustration, and immaturity perfectly, crafting a wicked black comedy. When a wealthy middle-aged man, played to perfection by Fernando Rey, is entranced by a young girl he has recently hired as one of the maids in his grand mansion, he pursues her obsessively. The girl is played by two different actresses; here Bunuel is slyly saying to the audience, This man is too (two) distracted, too (two) obsessed. The girl alternately leads him on and crushes his hopes, time after time, yet still the man returns to be alternately entranced and crushed. His actions are ultimately revealed to be far too immature--if nothing else, based on the behavior of the girl--for his age, but he can't help himself. Simultaneously, a guerilla group plants bombs and blows things up all over the city of Paris where the film is set. The immature need for immediate results, intensified by repeated frustration--typified by both the guerillas and the desperate man--is nowhere revealed in film as dramatically as in That Obscure Object of Desire. The film ends with the convergence of these two entities (the guerillas and the man) in a perfect climax. The "message"? Not only that you can't always get what you want; more to the point, here is what people do all over the world: want things they don't understand, fail to understand what they want. Highly recommended. Bunuel is like no other director, ever, and this film is without question one of his best.
Rating:
Summary: So many views missing the point...
Review: So many of the negative views on this master piece are missing the point. This final picture is Bunel's take on the subject of power struggle between the sexes. It has been said that there are three fundamental things that propel everything in a society, Power, Money and Sex. Power and money belong to the category of class struggle and Bunuel has illuminated his view on this subject (mixed in with Religion as the fourth element) with so many films. And he decided to take on the battle of the sexes at the time when he was no longer under the tyrany of this primodial force called sexual desire. It is Bunel's stroke of genius in casting two female actress with totally opposite persona. I first saw this movie in my college days and couldn't make anything out of it like so many reviewers here. Now, I am much older, devorced, and having spent a few more years dating again. Now, on second viewing, I understand Bunuel. This is one movie, in fact, the whole subject matter of human desire, really requires a good amount of experience of life, especially the darker and more tragic side of it, as a prerequisit for even a basic understanding.
Rating:
Summary: So many views missing the point...
Review: So many of the negative views on this master piece are missing the point. This final picture is Bunel's take on the subject of power struggle between the sexes. It has been said that there are three fundamental things that propel everything in a society, Power, Money and Sex. Power and money belong to the category of class struggle and Bunuel has illuminated his view on this subject (mixed in with Religion as the fourth element) with so many films. And he decided to take on the battle of the sexes at the time when he was no longer under the tyrany of this primodial force called sexual desire. It is Bunel's stroke of genius in casting two female actress with totally opposite persona. I first saw this movie in my college days and couldn't make anything out of it like so many reviewers here. Now, I am much older, devorced, and having spent a few more years dating again. Now, on second viewing, I understand Bunuel. This is one movie, in fact, the whole subject matter of human desire, really requires a good amount of experience of life, especially the darker and more tragic side of it, as a prerequisit for even a basic understanding.
Rating: 
Summary: Amusing, but not nearly The Discreet Charm
Review: That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Bunuel, 1977) That Obscure Object of Desire, the sixth(!) adaptation of Pierre Louys' novel Le Femme et le Pantin to come to the screen (and there was a seventh, released in 1990, as well), was Bunuel's final film. And while it's obviously a Bunuel film, it's probably a good thing that it was his last. It contains all the hallmarks of Bunuel, but without the compelling qualities that made his earlier work some of the best filmmaking ever. At the opening, Mathieu (Fernando Rey) is boarding a train. He stops to pour a bucket of water over the head of a young woman. His fellow passengers naturally wonder about all this, so he tells them the tale of his courtship of Conchita (played by two actresses, Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina), which is, in essence, a tale of never-ending frustration, as the couple's every attempt to make love is thwarted, either by one of them or by some outside force. Bunuel fans will not be unfamiliar with this ruse (it's the same fate as the dinner party in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie), or many of the trappings surrounding it. Yet still, it lacks something. The most interesting part of the DVD is in the extras, which compare Bunuel's versions to the second adaptation of the novel, La Femme et le Pantin (Jacues de Baroncelli, 1928). One only wonders for a moment why they chose the particular scenes for the comparison they did, especially the climactic fight; suffice to say without giving anything away that Bunuel makes a few changes to the characters' attitudes that give the climax a whole different tone. I only with I could find the complete 1928 version to compare. (I have had the novel on my TBR stack for eight years, time to read it.) It is possible that those who've never seen another of Bunuel's late-period films will find this far more amusing than I did. I, however, am stuck comparing it to The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, one of the finest films not only from the Bunuel collection but by any director, and in that light, That Obscure Object of Desire was a pretty, amusing trifle. ** ½
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